Hi everyone,

I work with Michel who don't know his father.
Thanks to DNA tests on various genealogy platforms (and thanks to great DNA match up to 6%) we've build some strong hypothesis we are trying to verify.
For that, we need to gather information about jewish people from Casablanca around 1900 whose name is "Sebag", "Sabag". More precisely, we are focusing on a group of siblings composed of Solica Sebag, Shimon Sebag, Meir Sebag and what we are trying to verify is : in this group, is there a sister called Donna Sebag (died 1976 and burried at Ben M Sik jewish cemetery of Casablanca). Their parents are Aaron Sebag and Dada (Dédé) Sebag, born Smaja/Smeja.

Michel's father is probably one of Donna's brothers and we want to find documents about them.

Maybe you will have some info, tips, to help me in this task.


Erwan Guillou
Strasbourg, France

Erwan,

I am not sure I quite understand what you are saying about the match and I do not know French. However, if you are saying the match is only six percent that is not close enough to actually establish a match. Due to endogamy finding an actual match requires more shared DNA and a fairly long segment match. 

Here is an article written by Kitty Cooper: http://blog.kittycooper.com/2014/11/using-ashkenazi-jewish-dna-to-find-family/

My apology if I am misunderstanding the 6% you mention. 

Carolyn Lea (Schwarzbaum) OKC, OK

Carolyn, that's not true. 6% of total shared autosomal DNA is major and the connection can usually be traced when there's a paper trail or family knowledge. According to 23andMe, I share 7.33% with a known 1st cousin once removed and 3.12%, 2.71%, 2.17%, 1.84%, 1.83%, and 1.6% with some of my documented 2nd cousins once removed. At MyHeritageDNA, I share 5.8% with another known 1st cousin once removed and 1.7% with a known 3rd cousin once removed. All of us are Ashkenazic except that the 1.7% match is only half-Ashkenazic.

Of course, your other advice -- about concentrating on long segments -- is good.
--
Kevin Brook